Lord Triesman: My Lords, I am aware of no direct evidence of Italian weapons being smuggled in that way. However, during the course of our presidency, we urged the Italians to take seriously their responsibilities to work together with all other European Union nations in achieving peace. They have had somewhat different policies in one or two key respects. On assistance, we intend to provide up to £13 million to Somalia in the financial year 2005–06. We contributed £420,000 to the reconciliation process and we are also providing assistance to the UN development programme to support the government's relocation to Somalia and the humanitarian relief operations. We shall provide more, if it is credible to do so, to a government who are properly established.

EU Commissioners

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, does the noble Lord remember that the French Government pressed fairly hard in the early stages of the EU convention for a Commission of 11 or 13 to be selected from among the member governments and that ideas were floated that national governments should be allowed, with the nominated president of the Commission, to choose among the nominees from different member governments, so that we would have both a much more effective college of Commissioners and a much higher general level of competence than there sometimes is from some countries in some situations? I say that tactfully. Could not the British Government keep that proposal alive because we are deeply committed to a more effective Commission as part of a more effective European Union?

Lord Carter: My Lords, my noble friend said that the DLA is intended to meet the extra costs of disability, irrespective of income. It is not a form of income support. Does he therefore agree that any attempt to means test the DLA would run counter to the whole basis of the benefit?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, we have not sought a review of the membership of the Court. As my noble friend has just said, we believe that it has been adequate for the purposes and very wise in many of its decisions. I understand that my noble friend's concern is with what might be an unwarranted extension of law and sanctions by the Commission and by the ECJ. Perhaps the ECJ judgments on criminal penalties is the key to this concern. However, we are clear that it remains the role of member states to determine whether criminal sanctions are necessary and proportionate to enforce a particular rule. In the event that we did not agree with a Commission proposal, we would resist it, and other member states would do the same. Making sure that there is not creep across our domestic law must remain a matter of real concern for all of us.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: On behalf of my noble friend Lady Andrews, I beg to move the Motion standing in her name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the Bill be committed to a Grand Committee.—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)

Baroness Noakes: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 1, I will speak to the three other amendments in the group, which stand in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury.
	Amendment No. 1 returns to the issue of the costs of the ID cards scheme. Our Committee stage was unusual, in that we failed to get any useful information, despite spending several hours on the matter. In fact, our only achievement was to establish with more precision what the Government would not tell us about costs.
	I make no criticism of the Minister. It is clear that she has been operating to a very controlled brief. Her responses in the Chamber and to Written Questions have had a formulaic quality. But I do criticise the Government for imposing this highly restricted brief on the noble Baroness and preventing your Lordships' House gaining a deeper understanding of the costs of the ID scheme.
	The Government have been praying in aid commercial confidentiality and have said that to release further information would prejudice their ability to get value for money from procurement. For example, the Minister said in Committee on 19 December at col. 1563 of Hansard:
	"no one would dream of bidding lower than our forecast costs".
	We simply do not understand this. If the Government are procuring in competitive markets, the bidding behaviour that the noble Baroness describes is simply not credible. I know this, not least from my background as a bidder in the cutthroat market of professional services. We are clearly dealing with a competitive marketplace. The Minister herself said, also on 19 December at col. 1563, that the Government needed to,
	"secure value in a highly competitive environment".—[Official Report, 19/12/95; col. 1563.]
	Exactly. It seems that the Government do not believe in the power of competitive markets.
	We believe that it is unprecedented that a Bill with such major consequences for individuals in this country should proceed without Parliament being able to scrutinise the financial consequences. This is so whether the costs are borne by individuals through charging mechanisms or by general taxation. I have not heard the Government offer any precedents for this.
	As I explained in Committee, we on these Benches are mindful that the Government have some degree of manifesto cover for the Bill. In the name of responsible opposition, we have sought a way for the Bill to proceed through your Lordships' House, while also addressing the very real lack of parliamentary scrutiny of costs. That is what the amendments seek to do.
	Amendment No. 1 is a paving amendment making the powers in the Bill subject to a new clause after Clause 45, which is contained in Amendment No. 123. Subsection (1) of the new clause says:
	"No provision of this Act, except sections 38, 39 and 45 . . . shall be brought into force until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a report in accordance with subsection (2), and that report has been approved by the House of Commons".
	I should explain that the references to Clauses 38, 39 and 45 are to allow Clauses 38 and 39, which are not an intrinsic part of the ID scheme, to be implemented separately.
	Subsection (2) goes on to describe the report as containing a cost estimate covering both capital and revenue costs and a statement of expected benefits. These subsections are the heart of the amendment. They give the other place an opportunity to return to the issue of costs and benefits before the Act is brought into effect.
	Noble Lords will note that we have carefully confined the power to approve the report on costs and benefits to the other place. We want there to be no suggestion that your Lordships' House is straying beyond its constitutional boundaries.
	Subsection (3) of the new clause is rather technical, but ensures that the information on cost makes plain not only annual or revenue costs but also the capital costs. We have received a single figure for annual running costs of £584 million, but we have received no information whatever about capital costs.
	Subsection (4) requires the cost estimate to include both actual costs and an estimate going forward for 10 years. The reason is to capture the whole cost of the scheme, from its early days of design and start-up costs—again, about which we have received absolutely no information—through to initial implementation in, say, three years' time, and beyond, to the ongoing operation of the scheme and its transformation into a compulsory scheme. The Minister's figure of £584 million is only a small slice of the overall picture—it is the big picture that we are trying to see.
	Subsection (5) simply asks for the cost estimates to be presented in the format of financial years and subsection (6) makes it clear that the cost estimate covers not only the Home Office but the whole of government.
	Noble Lords who have not followed our debates in Committee may be surprised to find that we need to spell this out. The sad fact is that the Minister's brief has confined her to giving information about the Home Office's costs alone, and not even all of those, because the Minister has said that the £584 million do not even include the figures for its own immigration service.
	We are clear that we need to see figures for the whole of government, because the benefits that the Government have outlined occur across the whole of government. If Parliament is to get a proper look at costs and benefits, we must make sure that it compares apples and oranges—that is, the costs much match the benefits.
	Lastly, subsection (7) requires the cost estimate to be reviewed by the Comptroller and Auditor General. I am sure that that assurance will need no explanation.
	We are not seeking today to find out any more information about costs. In early December, before completion of the Committee stage, my noble friend Lady Anelay of St Johns wrote to the Minister offering to place the Committee into a secret session, under Standing Order 15 of your Lordships' House. We could then have discussed the costs in detail without any commercial confidentiality complications. The Government declined. Now that we have reached Report, it is too late for detailed analysis, so I will not today weary the House with the detailed questions that we felt should have been answered.
	Let me just put the costs in context. The Government say that the annual running costs are £584 million. That is for one year, starting in late 2008. The London School of Economics report, which came out last June, put the figures over a 10-year period in a range of £10.6 billion to £19.2 billion. If the Home Office's annual figure of £584 million is representative of costs over 10 years—which is a very big if—we get a total of £5.8 billion. The Government say that the fee for a passport will be £93 and that for an identity card £30. They imply that the fees are driven from the £584 million cost estimate.
	If the LSE report is right, the fee for a passport could actually be between £170 and over £300, and an ID card fee could rise to over £100. The Government have refused to cap fees, so the implication is that if costs rise, so too will fees. There is plenty of research to show that the acceptability of the ID card scheme declines as its cost increases.
	The Home Office has produced some analysis in an attempted rebuttal of the LSE's figures, but the lines of attack have been about a few specific assumptions. There has not been an open and detailed debate between the Home Office and the LSE team. I know that the LSE team regrets this.
	Since last summer the LSE team has found some areas where it overestimated costs, but also some areas where it underestimated costs. In the latest report, released over the weekend, it stands by its original estimates in aggregate.
	I am sure that the noble Lords will join me in being impressed that Sir Howard Davies, the director of the LSE, has been unswerving in his support of the research team, in the face of some immoderate reactions from the Government.
	The ID scheme is surrounded by much secrecy. We know that the scheme will require large and complex IT systems.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, my name is on this amendment with that of the noble Baroness. I shall make a few remarks on what, on any reckoning, is a highly important amendment—and indeed a highly unusual one, but then these are highly unusual circumstances, as the noble Baroness made clear.
	When previously has Parliament been asked to legislate on an initiative of this scale, complexity and sensitivity without there being the fullest explanation and justification of the technicalities and cost? We are not, after all, ordering some new-generation aircraft carrier; we are bringing into being a system of surveillance of every citizen in the land over the age of 15, if the Government have their way, dealing not just with the identity of us all, but with a range of personal information, some of it highly sensitive, and that caught by the so-called audit trail.
	As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, well put it, despite the novelty, scale and civil libertarian importance of the ID card scheme, we have received nothing more, as yet, beyond the estimate of the annual running costs of the Home Office alone, and then only in relation to the issue of passports and ID cards. That has been put—I like the notion of an estimate—at £584 million. I would not be as adamant about this—and, I am sure, many of your Lordships would not feel as keenly—were it not that what information we have been given has been extracted with as much difficulty as if we were pulling out the Prime Minister's teeth. Indeed, it was he—let us not forget it—who told the Labour Party conference in 1995, when Michael Howard, then Home Secretary, was introducing an ID scheme that was not dissimilar to this, the following:
	"Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards as the Tory Right demands, let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local communities".
	Hear, hear! Mr Blair was absolutely right, except that we are talking of wasting not a few hundred million pounds, but, more likely, billions of pounds.
	I must confess that, in this game of blind man's bluff, the estimate of the all-in costs seems to have been honestly, conscientiously and indeed expertly endeavoured—if I can use that word—by the London School of Economics Identity Project. The noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, has repeated several times that the information that we need to do our job is commercially sensitive and hence closed to us, because we are in the middle of the tendering process for the ID card scheme. The LSE group, as noble Lords will know, finds that excuse wholly unconvincing. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, talked of the reality of the tendering process. She, like the LSE, does not believe that explanation. But the overarching objection to the Government's refusal to give Parliament the full figures is constitutional. It is only because the Government have jumped the gun and apparently got as far as going out to tender that the issue arises at all. Frankly, that is their lookout. Apart from the presumptuousness of assuming that they will get their will in Parliament—and that says a lot—it would be the death knell for the role of Parliament in holding governments to account if they could so easily evade proper financial scrutiny. I have asked "greybeards" from around this place and outside for other instances of such bare-faced presumption. No one has been able to tell me anything comparable.
	As noble Lords will know, over the weekend the LSE group published a second report which reviews the conclusions of the first in the light of subsequent developments. The first report was issued last June. Sir Howard Davies, director of the LSE—and it should not be forgotten that until recently he was head of the Financial Services Authority, which knows a thing or two about financing—states in the introduction:
	"As this second report shows, the Government have not been very forthcoming in providing details of their proposals. The LSE team stands by the cost estimates outlined in its first report, but changes to the policy made by the Home Office make it difficult now to produce a definitive assessment of the total cost".
	That was the team's hope in producing a second report. Although the LSE project originally supported an ID scheme in principle, it expressed itself thus in the second report:
	"In the light of the numerous inconsistencies and conflicts that have emerged, serious unanswered concerns that remain, project dynamics that are dysfunctional and potential outcomes that may be harmful to the public interest we can now no longer support even the principle of an identity scheme owned and operated by the Home Office. Its primary purposes remain unsubstantiated, its benefits remain unclear and its costs opaque".
	Again, in case some noble Lords are unaware of the people who form that project, it includes over 12 professors from the London school, I believe.
	Part of their mounting unease arises from the Cabinet Office publication last November, Transformational Government Enabled by Technology. I cannot resist giving those noble Lords who have not seen it a flavour of its approach. It states:
	"Government will create an holistic approach to identity management, based on a suite of identity management solutions that enable the public and private sectors to manage risk and provide cost-effective services trusted by customers and stakeholders".
	I cannot also resist noting the bland managementspeak and the reduction of citizens to "customers".
	A report by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers this month, Loser—Britain's identity crisis, states:
	"The design of the system is based on unreliable and inadequate technologies that could result in privacy and security problems".
	As has been made clear, the fact is that most government departments have not yet bought into the scheme, which means that they have not yet conducted publishable research into costs and benefits. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office stated last month that it could do none of those things until,
	"policy issues relating to the use of or access to ID cards overseas have been clarified".—[Official Report, Commons, 19/12/05; col. 2483W.]
	That general riposte is, in effect, repeated by many other departments. Given that last October the Home Office stated that it foresaw 44,000 private sector users and 265 government departmental and agency users, the need for the amendment and the homework that it will produce could not be clearer.
	The LSE and the Home Office, in so far as the Home Office has come out of its bunker, disagree about more than they agree. They disagree about the number of changes likely to be notified to the registrar over a 10-year period. Will the contingency costs be £250 million or £1.2 billion? They disagree about the life expectancy of an ID card. Will it be three years, five years or 10 years? They disagree about likely card replacement levels through damage or theft. They disagree about the cost of biometric readers. Will it be £250 or £3,500? They disagree about the cost and likely usable life of mobile registration centres and biometric registration devices. I could go on, but I shall not.
	When the LSE tried to enter into discussions with PA Consulting, which had been engaged by the Home Office for this scheme, the LSE was rebuffed. When it set up a meeting with the Treasury, it was cancelled by the Home Office at the last minute. As the LSE report puts it, it has perceived,
	"an emerging siege mentality inimical to the project".
	Therefore, the LSE's second report declined to revise figures in the first report and concluded that it no longer felt that the Home Office was the right or fit department to oversee the ID cards scheme, which it considers should be transferred to the Treasury.
	The only figures that give a convincing indication of what is involved are those estimated by the LSE last June, which, including the integration costs across government, come out at between £19 billion and £24 billion over 10 years, in comparison with the Home Office figure of £584 million a year. The order of difference is enormous. As my earlier quote from Mr Blair rightly implied, politics is about choices; and choices on how best to deal with security, crime, immigration, welfare fraud and so on can be made sensibly only if one knows roughly how much money one has to spend and what the alternatives are. Mr Blair mentioned having more community police, and many of us would say, "Hear, hear" to that; but all the other heads of supposed benefit are open to alternative ways of going about it.
	Without this amendment, the citizen in public bars up and down this land of ours will tell us that we are buying a pig in a poke and putting the cart before the horse. This House should allow Parliament to do neither.

Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, in a moment I shall take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, about the costs not being known. He clearly did not listen over the weekend to the leader of my party on the subject of identity cards. It was perfectly clear that he entirely agrees with the views of my noble friend who moved the amendment.
	I take up the arguments advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, on the sixth day in Committee when we last debated the issue. First, I pointed out to her that it was not a universal practice of government departments to withhold estimates and that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor had given us an estimate of the cost of the Supreme Court, to which she said:
	"The issues that arise from which building to buy for the Supreme Court are different from the issues we now have to deal with, for this reason: the provision of secure facilities and managed IT data centres is a highly competitive market".
	Presumably the noble Baroness was arguing at that point that the construction industry was not a highly competitive market. If that is so, it really is the reverse of truth to say that there is no case for not giving the estimate. Clearly, if there is not a competitive market, it may be true that the market will bid something like the estimate given by the Government. However, she went on to say that it would be quite wrong to publish detailed costings now of the IT arrangements. She said:
	"If, for example, I were to say how much of the £584 million annual running costs is expected to be spent on running the national identity register, or the estimated cost of printing plastic ID cards, companies specialising in this sort of work would tailor their bids, to the estimates we suggest, as I have just indicated. In plain terms, there would be no chance of finding a cheaper option as no one would dream of bidding lower than our forecast costs, even if that could be done".—[Official Report, 19/12/05; col. 1563.]
	She was saying that this was a highly competitive market. I can understand that there may be officials in the Home Office with no commercial experience who would write that kind of argument. What I find surprising is that the noble Baroness, who is normally so very sharp and acute, could have brought herself to read it out. If she had been in court and it had been an argument advanced on the other side, I can imagine how she would have demolished it. The noble Baroness had been handling three major Bills over previous weeks. This was the sixth day. I suspect that she was tired and bored with the subject and it was easier to read out the answer.
	But this is a highly competitive market. It is a highly important contract. It is the kind of contract that companies in the field will want to win. They are major companies. Many are international companies. They will work out as best they can the costs of the project—what they think they can do the project at—and add a suitable margin to cover risks and profit margins.
	They will do something else as well—they will work on the assumption that the costs will escalate, because they know that the Government will change their requirements frequently, and that there will be changing security requirements over the years. In their contracts, they will have careful clauses to ensure that, if those things happen, they can produce additional charges. But their object will be to win the contract. They know that the Government will select the most competitive bid placed, assuming that the company has been accepted as a reputable company that can do the work. The idea that the companies will all bid the same—what the Government say is the estimate—is so fantastic that I simply find it incomprehensible that it could have been seriously advanced from the Benches opposite.
	I turn to the second argument that has been repeatedly put, which is that the Government cannot give us the costs of the non-Home Office expenses, because the other departments have not really got round to working out whether they will need or use the thing yet. That is self-evidently nonsense as well. For example, we know that the Foreign Office, about which we have heard already, issues passports at its embassies and consular posts abroad. I have a passport issued by the Foreign Office at its embassy in Caracas, after an unfortunate loss on a beach somewhere in Venezuela. To issue a passport in those circumstances, the Foreign Office will need the apparatus that makes it possible for it to give the biometric information. I pointed that out repeatedly in Committee, and entirely failed to get an answer out of the Government.
	Let us take a look at the noble Baroness's arguments about Home Office benefits. We had an intervention earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asking about the benefits, and we had some benefits spelt out in detail by the noble Baroness on the first day in Committee. She said that the benefits accruing to what she called the Home Office area of responsibilities amounted to between, depending on whether you took the lower or the higher figure, £600 million or just over £1 billion. But, to get those benefits, the police would have to have the equipment, as would Her Majesty's Customs and Excise and the Department for Work and Pensions. You do not get the benefits unless they come into the scheme. If the Home Office claims that it will benefit in that way, it cannot say that the costs are only those that relate to passports and an identity card directly related to passports. I am perfectly prepared, in broad terms, to accept that the Government may not be wildly out over the costs of issuing passports and identity cards relating to passports, because they are already planning for it. No doubt they have some detailed information that is more reliable than in other cases. However, they cannot claim all the other benefits without knowing what the other departments are doing.
	Incidentally, one other area has suddenly come into the equation. According to at least the press on the weekend before last, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, in his ministerial role, issued a consultation document that said that local government would be involved and would have to compare the entries on this register with those on the electoral register. Apparently—it is a horrifying thought—they will then act as a sort of policing body to ensure that the information is accurate. If it is not, substantial penalties can of course be imposed. I do not like the idea of the local authorities acting in that role at all, but that is a separate subject that we need to return to.
	I finish with a slightly different point. A few days ago, the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and I attended a meeting where we were briefed by many of the potential providers of the technology. Basically, they were there to answer questions on whether the technical problems could be overcome. I was struck by one overwhelming fact: they kept saying that, at present, they did not exactly know the Government's requirements; they did not know what the tender requirements would be. Indeed, in some cases they will not know until we have the orders and the detail later. I wrote down one comment: "We would welcome a much more in-depth engagement with industry". One thing that is quite certain is that if the industry does not yet know what the technical solutions are because they have not yet had the brief that enables them to give the technical answers, they certainly do not know what the costs are.
	That is why I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Barnett. If the Government were being honest about this, they would say, "The real reason why we are not giving you any of that information is that we haven't the faintest idea what the costs of this great project will be". They may be enormous. My conclusion is that there are two certainties: whatever estimates are now made, they will grow and grow and will be exceeded; and the final total cost will be far in excess of anything that is presented to us by anyone at present. It seems absolutely extraordinary that the Government should ask Parliament to proceed with this vast scheme on that foundation. Therefore, I strongly support the amendment tabled by my noble friend and I hope that the House will vote for it tonight.

Lord Soley: My Lords, I am slightly puzzled by this debate. When I read the amendments, I assumed that the debate would essentially be about costs. When one listens to the debate or reads the article by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, in today's Guardian, it is pretty clear that the debate is still about the principle and this is becoming very close to a Second Reading debate.
	I do not wish to go into it again, but if this is about the principle, bear in mind that many democracies around the world, which enjoy the rule of law, have identity cards. It is not crippling to the population; they are popular; and the idea is fairly popular here. I understand that saying the system will be costly undermines public confidence in the argument in favour of identity cards. As a party politician, it would be wrong of me to dismiss that as being without relevance. However, it seems to me that if the issue is about costs, I am not sure that the amendments address that at all. To give the noble Baroness her due, she focused on quite an important part: the tendering process.
	I have a great deal of respect for my noble friend Lord Barnett who has a very impressive record on this. He has said that this House is at its best when it holds the other House and the Government to account. However, I am not convinced that it does it best in this way. If the matter really is about expense, frankly I would not have heard all these arguments before, as I have. I have heard them in the House of Commons and in the wider public area. So what new things are being said here other than, as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, straightforwardly said in his Guardian article today, "I am against it in principle"? That is what it is really about.
	There is a case for looking in detail at the expense, not because other countries have done it at a perfectly reasonable price and not because this country did not have an ID card before—which of course it did have in the rather special circumstances of the Second World War—but because we are employing so much new technology. The key question is how well the technology will work. Expense alone does not tell one that, which is why such matters are often better dealt with in the more detailed analysis of a Select Committee or a special committee of that type. I often wonder whether we would not be better placed to advance our arguments on the issue of costs if we did it that way.
	It is true to say that if the expense of an ID card comes in very high and if it stays high, a great deal of political damage will be done to the government who introduce it. You only need think of the analogy of putting up the cost of the television licence. Think of putting up the cost of an ID card. Think of the initial cost of the ID card or, as my honourable friend the Minister indicates with the movement of his hands, a driving licence. There is a range of issues and arguments around this, but they are not being addressed today.
	I say this cautiously, because I am a new Member of this House and do not like to jump to the conclusion that I have understood all the subtleties of this place when I obviously have not. I worry, however, that if we, as political parties—whether Labour, Tory or Liberal Democrat—simply recycle the arguments that the parties had in another place, we do not enhance our status. We ought to be about enhancing our status as well as examining the evidence.

The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, as a Cross-Bencher, maybe I can assist the noble Lord, Lord Soley. We have now reached a stage where amendments are pushed. The Government have not listened to the arguments about costs. Whatever the noble Lord thinks about it, it is House of Lords procedure that, at this point, you would push an amendment to its limit to find out what the opinion of the House is. The fact that is has been debated before does not mean that it is not right now to test the opinion of the House, which I am sure is going to happen.
	It is not just political point-scoring. In fact, that is why, at this stage, speeches should stick to the amendment and not wander off into other areas. By and large, most people have stuck to that. I am quickly going to do exactly that. There is nothing new in the arguments being put right now, but the problem is that the Government have not listened and come back with anything.
	Every benefit has a cost. I think everyone knows that. In normal business and in running the country, one needs to do a cost-benefit analysis. It is a complete waste of taxpayers' money if it costs you much more to do something than the benefit you get from it, if there are other, better, ways of doing it. For instance, I fully support a biometric passport which is about to be issued under the e-borders scheme. It will have international standard biometrics buried in it, will let you cross borders more easily and will get you through airports and other places more quickly. That is a good idea.
	Something we should be worried about, however—everything everyone has said on this has been quite right—in addition to the things that the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, has said about his passport and other things, is that in order to deliver the benefits listed in Clause 1—for instance,
	"for the purposes of the protection or detection of crime"—
	this system will have to interface with the police national computer. Alternatively, an index to the police national computer is needed; the national identity register is not. The costs and benefits for that need to be worked out. It may be cheaper to store everyone's fingerprints on the police national computer, with an index into it, because no criminal information is allowed to be stored on the national identity register. Again, that cost-benefit analysis should be done.
	Immigration controls are enforced with the IND computer. Biometric stuff is issued to new arrivals, and they are biometrically checked if they reapply when they come in. If the IND computer is to interface, for the purposes of the Bill, with the national identity register, then those costs and benefits should be weighed up and put before Parliament before we go into this expensive exercise.
	If you want to enforce prohibitions on unauthorised working, that information is held on the WPUK computer, which used to be owned by the DHSS—the DWP—and is now owned by the Home Office. That is the work permits UK computer system. It may be cheaper to have an index straight into that. You need to do the cost benefit analysis.
	I shall not bore the House with the address issue now because I shall bring it up when we get to it, but the system must interface to verify addresses with what would have been—had it not fallen by the wayside about two or three months ago—the national spatial and address infrastructure effort, to bring together the postal address database. Not everyone lives at postal addresses. Many things are used to identify OWPAs— objects without postal address. You get them off the Ordnance Survey or various other things, which I shall talk about later. That will have to be sorted out first, and there will be copyright problems.
	It is technically possible. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, when he says that, and the people who have put it forward. But the amount of change management and the operation involved for the individual departments that are not Home Office-controlled to get the true benefits is enormous. Until that is sorted out we should not be going forward, blowing an awful lot of taxpayers' money on something that could be pie in the sky. Blue-skies thinking is fine for universities, but it is not the right thing to do with central government money.
	I do not want to bore the House, but before sitting down I shall refer to schemes such as federated identity—it is becoming much more popular and is much more an establishment thought—which allows the citizen control of his identity, and still enables delivery of central government services for the purpose of securing efficient and effective provision of public services. That can be done with a federated ID scheme quite happily. But I am not sure that the Bill would enable that to be implemented should a cost benefit analysis show it as the best way forward. I am trying to work on later amendments in case, three years down the road, we decide to go that way instead of using the national identity register.
	The cheapest is not always the best, as the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, said. We have to consider the whole life costs and the costs of support later on. We must be very careful about the temporary process.
	There are little things to consider. I worked with smart cards 10 or 12 years ago. A letter from the Home Office states that,
	"a ten year card life is possible".
	It may be with new cards; I do not know.
	When that letter compares Hong Kong and Spain, I realise that the Home Office has missed the point. The problem with cards in general is that in this country we get icy windscreens in winter. The thing nearest to hand for many is a plastic card. A credit card is useful because people can get goods and services with it. An ID card will not be very useful so, in preference in future, people will use their ID card to wipe their windscreens. Unfortunately chips pop out and delaminate.

Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, it might be useful if we return to the substance of the amendments. I draw your Lordships' attention to Amendment No. 123, which is grouped with this amendment and will, I imagine, be consequential if Amendment No. 1 is passed.
	Amendment No. 123 sets out the basis for what is known as a "cost estimate",
	"a detailed estimate of the revenue and capital costs arising from this Act",
	and,
	"a statement of the expected benefits of this Act".
	We learn from subsection 4(b) in the amendment that the cost estimate shall include,
	"the costs that are estimated to be incurred during a period of 10 years after the date to which the estimate is prepared or such longer future period as shall be determined by the Secretary of State".
	From subsection 3(b) we learn that the cost estimate shall include,
	"a statement of cash expenditures".
	I do not know about your Lordships' cash position, but if I were asked to put an estimate 10 years out of what my cash position might be, I would have various serious doubts about it, as would any business in the land.
	The amendment goes on to state that:
	"The cost estimate shall be analysed into each of the financial years ending 31st March covered by the cost estimate".
	Therefore, the cash expenditure that the cost estimate will include will be analysed into each financial year for 10 years out. Furthermore,
	"for the avoidance of doubt it is hereby declared that "Government departments or agencies"—
	which are part of this cost estimate—
	"includes any Northern Ireland department and the National Assembly for Wales".
	We are entitled to look at legislation in detail in this House. We are also entitled to look at amendments in detail, and this particular amendment needs some redrafting. Although I am sympathetic in principle to the idea that the Government should be more honest and open with what the costs might be, this amendment could not possibly be accepted by the House.

Lord Steinberg: My Lords, I share in the comments made by my noble friend Lord Peyton in congratulating the Minister on the steadfast way in which she has conducted matters. However, like my noble friend, I regret that I have a number of questions which, so far, are unanswered.
	I am opposed to the whole concept of ID cards, since it is rather like Big Brother watching you. It is always good that a government keep track of their citizens, and every law-abiding person is happy to sign. I am worried about the crooks, the underground thieves and those people who do not pay tax, for how will identity cards help to bring them into the net? I am sure that every Member of this House will sign up to an identity card process, if the time comes. However, we on these Benches—and, it appears, other sections of the House—are extremely worried about what the costs might be.
	We all know that the Government seem to favour a firm of accountants to the London School of Economics. I hold no brief for either, except to say that the London School of Economics has a somewhat similar nature to the top end of chartered accountants, such as PricewaterhouseCoopers or Peat Marwick, now KPMG, and so on. I heard only today that 12 professors were involved in putting these estimates together. I would not necessarily hold out that the estimates—and they are only estimates—will be any different coming from one organisation or another.
	Can it possibly be fair, therefore, to be buying a product for a figure—in this case, for what we must call the nebulous figure of £584 million—if you are not going to be told what you will get from it, or how much it will really cost? Is it really morally correct that someone can sell you something for that amount of money if you are not entitled to the details? For example, if I were buying a business and were told that the cost was £584 million, I would say, "Fine—can I have details? Can I look at the balance sheet and the profit and loss account?". In this case, we are getting no such details.
	My noble friend Lady Noakes referred to competitive issues, as indeed did others including the noble Lord, Lord Barnett. The more competition that there is, the better to get a cheaper price rather than a secretive, organised one arranged separately by government. I do not know how many companies the Government are in touch with about this—although the Minister would—but I am very much of the opinion that the more are involved in competing for what would be an extremely large contract, the better. That would mean we will get it for a cheaper price. I am no great mathematician but I have worked out that, by taking £584 million forward for the 10-year period that we are talking about and allowing for 2 per cent inflation per annum, after five years it would become £644 million and after 10 years £711 million. We all agree that these figures are nebulous and uncertain, but they show that building-in even only a 2 per cent inflation figure escalates the cost dramatically.
	What will be the capital cost? We really do not know. We have heard mention of from £10 billion to £19 billion, and I believe the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, mentioned a figure today of possibly £24 billion. These are colossal figures. They would contribute towards the budgets for education and the health service to a remarkable degree.
	Let me go a little further and talk about what the identity card will cost if it is to be foisted on the public. Will it cost £30, £60, £90, £100, £200 or £300? Even a sum of £500 was mentioned in the press at the weekend. I do not think the public would go for that and the whole thing would be a disaster. The noble Lord, Lord Wright, mentioned that when you are introducing new technology, new equipment and so on, it always has tweaks and can fall down. I always believe that whatever costs are built-in, they will end up higher. We are all entitled to know the answers to these questions. I emphasise what my noble friend Lady Noakes said in her opening remarks: we need more information.
	What about the link between passports and ID cards? If the Government are going to lump the two together, will this result in a different figure and be quantified in a different way? The Government have said that ID cards are to help with security, but will they help to deal with people who are involved in shadow areas—for instance, those who do not pay their taxes, drug dealers, asylum seekers who are not on the register and so on? I think not. The costs of the scheme are so terribly uncertain that we on this side of the House cannot possibly approve it without much more information and much more definite figures.

Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: My Lords, I was going to go on to do precisely that. If that is a way in which the noble Lord is happy to approach the matter, he should support the amendment, which says that, at a later stage—when the Bill has passed through the House and a lot of the details of the identity card are known—the measures will not be implemented until a proper analysis has been done by the House of Commons and possibly by the Select Committee on Procedure, to which he referred. I will also say something about what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said about that, which seems to fit in with this amendment. What the noble Lord, Lord Soley, just said should cause him to think again and perhaps to support the amendment.
	I say to the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, that as another former Chief Secretary I understand very well his point about estimates. However, the point is that the Government have given an estimate that is so widely different from the other estimates in public that it is absolutely right for us to probe and test it. The problem is that we do not have any of the details; we just have a global figure from the Government, so we cannot test it properly unless we go through the process that Amendment No. 123 recommends.
	Let me touch on one or two points that concern me about the Government's figure. I shall take the figure not of £584 million but of £187 million, because the Minister said in previous debates that a lot of the cost would be incurred anyway to introduce the new passports. We are talking about an estimate of £187 million to introduce a new project way beyond passports, and I frankly do not believe it. Perhaps the LSE estimate is too high, but the figure must be somewhere in-between.
	Let me give some reasons why I need further details. The first concerns cost overruns. The noble Lord, Lord Wright, referred to an IT project in the Foreign Office. We all know the number of cost overruns that have been undertaken on major projects by governments of both political persuasions. The Scottish Parliament is an obvious example, but there are so many examples in IT and many other areas that there will undoubtedly be a cost overrun. What is the Government's estimate of what the cost overrun should be? I believe that there is a contingency fund of 20 per cent, although I had to dig that information out. Is that right? If it is only 20 per cent, I do not believe that that is an accurate figure for the cost overrun. We need a lot more detail on that score.
	On the capital costs, we are told that included within the figure of £187 million there is depreciation and interest on capital. How can that be incorporated within £187 million? Perhaps it can be, but we want to see the details. How much of the capital cost will be undertaken under PFI? I have been a strong supporter of PFI in principle and in practice, but there comes a point, just as with a company—because this is effectively off-balance-sheet financing—that if there is too much off-balance-sheet financing, the whole project is threatened because there is not the cash flow to pay for it. I believe that that is beginning to happen with PFI too. I was interested to see today's report in the Times that the Government are getting very concerned about the number of PFI projects with hospitals because there will be a substantial overrun. I think that the Treasury has woken up to the risk of undertaking too many hospital projects under PFI too soon. Will we find that there is some PFI element in these estimates? Are they realistic, and is it not likely that that will be challenged?
	The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, mentioned benefits, and I very much agreed with him. In my analysis, it is important that at least the costs do not substantially outstrip the benefits. The problem is that we do not have any real information from the Government on what they think, quantified, the benefits will be. In response to the KPMG review, which recommended more work on benefits, the Home Office summary of work in progress said:
	"A great deal of work has been undertaken with other departments to ensure the benefits for the scheme are quantified".
	I do not know whether that includes the Inland Revenue, as it used to be called, but certainly I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. If a great deal of work is going on, why is Parliament not being told? Why is Parliament not being given these figures? If they cannot be completed yet, it makes sense to have them looked at in the terms of the amendment when we come to the stage when it would be operational.
	The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, spoke of the costs across government and not just in the Home Office. That must be right as well. I find it difficult to believe that the Treasury is not concerned about the implications of an identity card for all sorts of departments and is not already asking the departments what the likely cost will be. Substantial costs will be at the expense of other projects that the department might otherwise have undertaken in social security, education, and so on. I see the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, nodding. The Treasury has been very remiss if it has not been doing that kind of work.
	I find it alarming that all we are being given are the Home Office figures, without any indication of the others. I therefore very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, in that respect. If the Treasury has been doing the work, why can't Parliament be told as well?
	The Government have relied quite heavily on the fact that the KPMG review has given a fairly good response to what the Home Office has so far undertaken. In fact, they have rather relied on the KPMG report; instead of us being able to examine the estimates, we have to take it on trust that KPMG has done the work. Many of us have been at the receiving end of accountancy reports on a number of projects. I commend the Home Office for embarking on the KPMG report; it was obviously important and necessary to do so, but it is limited.
	We are all used to these reports. This one was completed in a month. Most of them are completed very quickly by accountants. They are reliant on the information given by the department that sponsored it, and as much they are a test of process.
	The KPMG report makes clear that it was very limited in scope. It did not cover by any means all the cost estimates being considered. It certainly is not a ringing endorsement of the cost figures. We should be quite clear about that.
	I have not yet been able to read the new LSE report, although I have seen the foreword by Sir Howard Davies, which makes it very clear where it still stands. In spite of all the criticisms, it holds its ground. The LSE report gives details, which has enabled the Government to question some of its assumptions. A number of us have seen the detailed government questioning of some of the assumptions of the LSE report.
	The Government, however, are not giving any details of their own estimates, so preventing others from doing to them what they are now doing to the detailed LSE review. All we are asking is that, on the basis of the LSE review, which all of us have seen, we should be able to test the Government's much more limited estimate in the same way. That is what Amendment No. 123 does, and it is why I support it.

Baroness Henig: My Lords, perhaps I may something about costs and benefits. I declare an interest as president of the Association of Police Authorities. As is the case with many on these Benches, I strongly believe that the ID cards scheme will bring a whole range of benefits across a variety of services. I am aware that many noble Lords opposite do not believe that and are making clear their concerns, but it seems an extreme step to advocate a completely new constitutional approach, as in Amendment No. 123. I echo the concerns expressed by my noble friend on that amendment, because it contains a number of elements that would be extremely difficult to carry out in practice.
	I am clear about the need for containing the costs of this scheme and preventing overruns. We are all concerned about that, but this scheme has already been scrutinised extensively—at this stage, probably as extensively as any other scheme has been. We have already heard that it has been stringently reviewed in the Office of Government Commerce gateway process and that review is continuing. Thus far the scheme has been given a green light in relation to estimates of cost and benefit, which have passed their rigorous inspection. We have heard that KPMG's independent review of the cost methodology and the cost assumptions in the outline business case produced a very favourable report. It especially praised the high quality of the outline business case. It is fair to make that point.
	The Treasury is keeping tabs on the scheme and, of course, expenditure will be subject to the usual audit procedures by the National Audit Office. Risk assessments have been undertaken. I understand that an independent assurance panel has been established to offer a further layer of oversight with its private sector expertise in ensuring effective implementation. In the final analysis, estimates have to be approved by Parliament by being voted through the supply estimates process. Surely, that is a fairly comprehensive list of reviews and scrutiny to ensure that the project does not overrun significantly and continues to offer value for money. These are the stages that past schemes have gone through. I understand the concerns, but I do not believe that they should overthrow the process that we have been following for many years.
	Other departments will opt into the technology on an incremental basis, and presumably absorb a lot of the costs some way down the line as part of system or IT upgrades. But I wanted to put into the equation the considerable benefits to be realised by other departments. The Department for Work and Pensions has already come up with estimates for significant savings by being able to combat fraud and identity crime much more effectively—and there are figures for that. There will be benefits for a whole range of departments and services in being able to check identities—and we know that one of the main benefits that the general public most wants to see is more effective vetting to make sure people are who they say they are. That is a big benefit.
	I would also like to comment on behalf of the police service, to which this scheme will be of considerable value. Police will be able to expose false identities much more quickly and establish early identification of suspects. Road traffic policing and checking suspects will be much more secure, as drivers will be much less likely to give false names—and I should tell the House that they do that at present in a surprisingly high number of cases. Simply ensuring that people are telling the truth when they give their names will save a lot of time.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I assure noble Lords that I have listened with great care and interest to all that has been said, and I hope that I shall be able to answer in a way that will give your Lordships a little more confidence. I take this opportunity to thank the noble Lords, Lord Peyton and Lord Steinberg, for giving me such unmerited and glorious praise; but we believe that on this occasion the Government have given me meat with which to work—it is not as empty as noble Lords fear. We should remind ourselves that this particular enterprise is going to be put into the hands of the Passport Office. Noble Lords should understand that it is because of the expertise and the level of acuity and care this office has demonstrated that we are minded so to do. The Passport Office has brought its enterprises in on time and on budget.
	It is also right to remind ourselves of the context in which the changes for ID cards will be made. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, with regard to the comments made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister when he was in opposition, that he was absolutely right about the increased in numbers of police officers. We have succeeded in doing that. We have an all-time record of roughly 140,000 officers. Anything we do in this sphere does not in any way jeopardise our total commitment in that regard.
	Bearing in mind what we are intending to do, we need to look at what is already in place. The changes to ID cards, as I have said, are predicated on changes that are already on course. In February the first biometric passport will be introduced, which will include facial recognition. In October the first interviews—the extended background checks—will commence. The network, in terms of where those interviews will take place, has already been identified. The big change will be in enrolment and the process interview, but in time that too has to be introduced for our biometric data. We currently have a complex database that contains all the information on passports, and as we move to include biometrics from fingerprints and iris identification, those two will have to be incorporated into the Passport Service.
	We have called the central new database "the register", but noble Lords will be familiar with the fact that the Passport Office currently has a database. When we include the biometric data that will come from facial recognition and fingerprints, that information will have to be contained on that database. As a result of the demands made on the service, we have now piloted passport validation, a commercial service that will come on stream in 2006. It is demand-led because, even under the current legislation, there has been a demand for that from the business community.
	All of those items are coming anyway, and the passport service will have to provide for them. So if we look at the differences between the service that will be provided now and that which we anticipate will be necessary to be provided in the long term, the differences are not great. I will list them. A database of basic personal information and biometrics exists, and that will continue. An identity document that stores information, including biometrics, is already provided. The ability for banks and other organisations to validate identity documents with consent exists now in pilot form. Disclosure to the police and other agencies of data held on the passport database happens already, and this would include the equivalent audit usage data.
	So what is new? The production of cards as well as passports is new. We do not currently record changes of address, but we propose to do so in the future. The IT infrastructure will be slightly bigger; and the scheme will be enforced; that is, civil penalties, mainly post-compulsion. What about the extra benefits? There will be broader coverage—that will be non-passport-holders and foreign nationals all using the same type of card; a scheme commissioner to oversee the exercise of all the powers; statutory rules for how the scheme would be used by the public and private services, and for how information would be provided without consent to the police and intelligence services; financial benefits that come with universal coverage—that is, the checking of unidentified fingerprints at scenes of crime; and an ability to set fees for identity verification services to meet the broader scheme's costs.
	When we consider what we now have, and what we propose, we say that around 70 per cent of the costs we have quoted would be incurred anyway in the move to biometric passports. This expenditure would not be subject to the regime set out in the amendment but would be governed by the usual rules applying to government expenditure. We need to be clear about that. This is not something outwith our ken; something that we cannot estimate. That is why have put into the public domain the figures that we already spend. The United Kingdom Passport Service for 2006–07 is estimated at £397 million, a figure to which the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, referred. That is already in the government expenditure plans. It will be incorporated in the estimated costs of issuing passports and ID cards of £584 million. That is published in a full, regulatory impact assessment. It is not a blank cheque. We know the basis upon which this has been cast.
	If we then look at the future, it would be easy to say, "If we just put the Identity Cards Bill to one side these costs would not be expended". As I hope that I have just indicated, that is unlikely because if we consider the way in which biometric data are being used and will be used in the future—the Passport Office is having to provide ID verification more and more now because those demands are being made upon it—we can see that this development will be necessary. I must confess that I am surprised at the suggestion from Her Majesty's loyal Opposition that if they came into power they would wish to disregard the benefits which are clear and which my noble friends Lady Henig and Lord Campbell-Savours spoke about with such passion.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, may recall that when the Bill was in another place my right honourable friend the Home Secretary gave a commitment that it would be affordable under current plans. My noble friend Lord Soley is right, therefore, about having to be practical and making sure that this is affordable because the public will demand that it is affordable; and if it is not affordable it will not retain public support.
	As a number of noble Lords have mentioned, the current plans have been scrutinised and reviewed by the accountants, KPMG, to set the charge for a stand-alone identity card at £30. We believe that those costs are robust costs. The noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, asks how much is allowed for contingency. The published estimates include both an allowance for contingencies in accordance with Treasury guidance. In addition, an allowance has been made for the optimism bias with which the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, will be only too familiar, to offset any over-optimism in the costing assumptions. All those details have been reviewed by KPMG as well as the Treasury although it would be wrong to publish precise figures in advance of procurement. The noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, and my noble friend Lord Barnett, know how keenly the Treasury look at estimates made by departments and how jealously they guard public funds to make sure that the last possible benefit is squeezed out for the benefit of the citizens of our country. That scrutiny has continued. Perhaps I may reassure the noble Lord, Lord Wright, that we have learned a valuable lesson from his painful experience and from the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, to ensure that we shall be able to meet these future costs in a way that is proper. We anticipate that scrutiny, and know that we will have to meet it.
	The difficulties with which we are faced are not as great as has been suggested. We have been asked, "Why not provide a breakdown of the costs in response to the LSE?". We have provided potential suppliers with the sorts of information that it would be possible for us to provide, but of course we come back to confidentiality. I shall come back to some of the more specific issues in a moment.
	I cannot add anything to what I have said, save to remind the House that we have published the expected costs of issuing identity cards and the current best estimates, and believe that they are sound. That cost that include all the existing costs of issuing passports through the current United Kingdom passport office. I fully accept that this is the cost of issuing the passports and identity cards and running and compiling the national identity register. It does not include future costs that may be incurred by other government departments that may choose to use identity cards as a way of improving their services to the public, any more than it includes the costs to private sector companies such as banks or building societies that decide in the future to use identity cards as a way of verifying people's identity. It would be somewhat odd if it did.
	The decisions on any future investment—for example, in IT systems that might be required to make the best use of identity cards—will be made in due course, but not now, by the organisation concerned on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis. We confidently expect that organisations, be they public or private, will decide to make such investment if it is worth their while—if the saving to them in identity fraud or the reduction in administrative costs, whatever it might be, makes the decision sensible. I was pleased that there seemed to be some agreement between the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, and my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours that the benefits are likely to be much wider than those that we have explored. There will be many net benefits to a wide range of organisations and, as your Lordships will no doubt be aware, the Government have already published a high-level summary of likely future benefits in the benefits overview paper, a copy of which is available in the Library. In the regulatory impact assessment published alongside the Bill, the Government stated that, in our view, the benefits of the scheme justify the costs. That has been confirmed by the Office of Government Commerce gateway reviews.
	It would be unprecedented for a piece of legislation such as this to be incapable of being implemented until a report on cost estimates was completed, as set out in Amendment No. 123. I agree with the criticism of the drafting made by my noble friends Lord Williams of Elvel, Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Barnett, who was right in saying that the amendment was fundamentally flawed.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, I want to ask the noble Baroness for clarification of something that she said a moment ago—that the £584 million would include the costs of maintaining and updating the register, and presumably with dealing with inquiries. That is not what the Explanatory Notes say; they say that:
	"£584 million will be the annual cost of issuing biometric passports and ID cards to UK nationals".
	As for overall running costs, they are to be covered by a "combination of charges"—charges on the public—
	"for applications, issue of cards, identity verification services",
	and so on. Does the £584 million cover the cost of maintaining and updating the register with every change of address and so on that we have already inquired about?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord has had an opportunity to look at our regulatory impact assessment and the basis of what is covered by the £584 million. I have made it absolutely clear that what is incorporated in that money. Part of it is in relation to the register and putting that on board.
	We have said that the current running costs are £397 million. The estimated change will involve the £584 million. I do not detract from anything that has been said or contained in that full regulatory impact assessment.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I think it has gone through its first two stages—that is, nought and one—and it has been given a clear bill of health to continue to the next stage. So the gateway review process is well on its way and is within the ambit of where it should be. The noble Earl will know that it is not usual for the gateway process details to be expanded upon or disclosed.
	I believe that the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, complemented us on employing KPMG, or it might have been the noble Lord, Lord Peyton—I think he said, "At least we have done that". That process has been very important. KPMG carried out an independent review in November 2005 of the cost methodology and cost assumptions in the outline business case for the identity cards programme. That report recognised the high quality of the outline business case and confirmed that the majority of cost assumptions were based on appropriate benchmarks and analysis from the public sector and suppliers.
	The 15-page extract from the KPMG report has been placed in the Library of the House and includes all the report's recommendations on which we are now taking action. So there is an easy answer to those who want more detail of our costings. The reason, as I have made clear before, is to protect the taxpayer and the public who will benefit from the identity cards scheme. We simply must not provide information that could undermine obtaining the best value for money when we go out to open tender for the procurement of the different elements of the identity cards scheme.
	I know that the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, suggested that I was perhaps having what would colloquially be called "a bad hair day" when we last debated this, but I can assure him that that was not the case. I know that the noble Lord would not wish me to trespass on the normal procurement rules, which of course his suggestion may well do. The identity card programme is conducting a market-sounding exercise in co-operation with Intellect. It has attracted widespread interest and positive feedback. It would be against the EU regulations and OGC rules to issue requirements to industry in advance of a notice to be published in the Official Journal of the European Union. This, as we have made clear, cannot occur before Royal Assent is granted. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, is not asking the Government to break any official procurement procedures; that would be far from his mind. We have done everything that we are able.
	The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, also mentioned the Foreign Office. I assure noble Lords that what I said still stands: it is not intended that the Foreign Office should issue ID cards. ID cards will not be issued abroad. They are for UK residents and UK residents only. Passports will continue to be issued abroad. The biometric passport is coming. All parties agree on that. This is a cost that will be incurred even if not one single ID card is issued. The Foreign Office will remain responsible for issuing those biometric passports abroad, in accordance with the ordinary rules.
	I therefore hope that I have demonstrated to the noble Lord that he is quite wrong when he says that the Home Office does not have faintest idea of the cost, or that it does not hold water. We do, and I respectfully suggest that we have offered a good answer as to why our figures are robust.
	There has been quite a lot of debate today about the LSE report. It is correct that the LSE's original assessment did not concur with our own. In its report the LSE—which claims to be without political bias—accuses the Government of secrecy. Throughout the development of the identity cards programme, Home Office officials have met a wide range of interested parties, including those representatives from the LSE. In addition to a very wide range of policy papers, research and other documents have been published. The policy on ID cards has been one of the most widely debated in recent years. We believe that it continues to command wide public support, despite the best efforts of critics to create what many see as a misleading, inaccurate and poorly researched approach.
	PA Consulting Group has confirmed that no approach was made to it from the LSE authors' team. In any case, I suppose the LSE would know that such a meeting would put PA Consulting in breach of its client confidentiality. We have provided on our website an in-depth critique of the LSE's report. It is available, in detail, for those who wish to see the basis upon which we disagree with it.
	Commercial confidentiality has been rather put to one side, as if it were not something of real import. I assure the House that it is. It is claimed that the commercial sensitivity of the detailed costs of the scheme holds no water and is not a matter of importance. This statement contradicts the behaviour of the market itself. The market-sounding process created by Intellect—the UK trade association for the high-tech industry—was established in recognition of the fact that both potential suppliers and the Government needed to keep elements of their planning, including costs, confidential. The high level of the engagement of suppliers in the identity cards programme market-sounding exercises run by Intellect appear to underline the industry's support for that concept. This statement also overlooks that the Government have already made it clear that the scheme will be self-financing. At today's prices, the unit cost for a joint passport and identity card is £93, with a fee for a standalone ID card of £30. We have already set the anticipated parameters that we would wish to see, in a way that is helpful and non-destructive.
	I assure my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours that the Government have sought and included a great deal of independent expertise—all the experts to which my noble friend Lady Henig referred—and the independent assurance panel, the review project overall, independent experts in biometrics and many, many more. That is on top of the Government's scrutiny on commerce.
	We have had a full business case and a lot of detailed information. The Bill is enabling legislation to allow a system of ID cards to be introduced. The Bill will not be the final word. The Government will need to be reassured at every stage that there is sound financial viability for the scheme. Of course, expenditure on the identity cards programme is subject to the normal audit procedures of departmental expenditure through the National Audit Office and the Home Office agency to be established to issue identity cards and to incorporate the existing UK Passport Service, which will publish a corporate and business plan as well as annual accounts.
	On the detail of the amendments, I do not accept that there should be such an unprecedented review of the estimated costs of the identity card scheme covering a period of 10 years and the consequential costs falling to other departments before the Bill comes into force. I simply do not think that that is necessary. The level of scrutiny that has already been—and will continue to be—given to the project by my colleagues in Her Majesty's Treasury should not be forgotten. Such a major project inevitably benefits from a close level of Treasury scrutiny. So before any money can be spent, estimates have to be prepared and agreed with the Treasury. They must be approved by Parliament by being voted through the supply estimates process in the House of Commons either in the main or the supplementary estimates.
	I end by reminding the House that this is not the first time that an identity card scheme has been considered. In 1996, the then Conservative government proposed the introduction of identity cards and responded to a report from the Home Office committee in the other place on whether there needed to be a detailed analysis of the net public expenditure effect of the proposed scheme. The answer given by the then government, published as part of Command Paper 3362 in August 1996, stated:
	"We see no need to initiate any consultation on the expenditure involved as provision will be sought in estimates to be approved by Parliament".
	That is exactly what we intend to do. Just as a previous government were prepared to rest on the established procedures for government expenditure, so should we. This matter can be dealt with in its proper place by the other place and not by this House. On that basis, I very much hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, will not press her Amendments Nos. 1, 121, 122 and 123, flawed as they clearly are.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
	Their Lordships divided: Contents, 237; Not-Contents, 156

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
	[Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 not moved.]

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is seeking through his amendment to extend the reference to "secure and reliable" in Clause 1(3)(b) so as to refer to more than the method for which registrable facts about an individual can be ascertained or verified. I also understand the spirit in which he has moved the amendment. I dare say that we agree on the obvious point that the register must be both secure and reliable, but I am not convinced, having heard what he said, that this needs to be stated in the Bill in the way in which he suggests.
	Additionally, I am not convinced that Amendment No. 4 really achieves this, as Clause 1(3)(b) is concerned just with identification where that is in the public interest, whereas we would expect the register to be secure and reliable in every instance. I think that the noble Lord might want in any event to think about the drafting of the amendment.
	It goes pretty much without saying that the Secretary of State will want to ensure that the register is secure. Furthermore, once we have reached government Amendment No. 77 to clause 24, which the noble Lord mentioned, there will be a specific reference in the Bill to the National Identity Scheme Commissioner being able to review the arrangements for securing the confidentiality and integrity of information that is recorded in the register. I should also, once again, remind noble Lords that the data on the register must be held in a manner that is compliant with the Data Protection Act, as I am sure the noble Lord and the noble Baroness will be aware. The security of data is dealt with in some detail by the seventh data protection principle, which provides that:
	"Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data".
	I feel strongly that we should not seek to reiterate in this Bill the obligations that already fall on the Secretary of State by virtue of the Data Protection Act. Nor would it be desirable to provide for parallel or overlapping obligations.
	We are often criticised for doing that in legislation—at least, that is the assumption behind some amendments. We need to have faith in the detailed provisions that not just your Lordships' House but another place has made about the protection of personal data.
	In any event, we think that we are covered. We think that the amendment is unnecessary and question at least one item in the noble Lord's drafting, although, in spirit, we are all there. The noble Lord is absolutely right to continue making the case for secure and reliable data and ensuring that they are properly protected. Although we understand the point, we think this amendment is unnecessary and ultimately undesirable.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the current provisions are needed. Noble Lords will know that false identities underpin much of the crime that takes place in this country, from volume crime to serious organised crimes. Criminals, especially those who are engaged in organised crime, are extremely adept at circumventing measures that have been put in place to limit their activities. I shall give noble Lords an example. Our research shows that about 60 per cent of drivers who are stopped provide false details. So it is very difficult when one is dealing just with serious crime to confine the provision in the way that the noble Lord suggests.
	Amendment No. 5 provides that the register could be used only,
	"for the purposes of the prevention or detection of crime, the sentence for which may be imprisonment or detention".
	This would be an arbitrary limit and it should be rejected for the same reasons as those for which we rejected the suggestion in Committee to add the limit of serious crime. Crime of whatever nature needs to be addressed. It would not be appropriate to limit access to the register by preventing information being available where a police investigation relates to a non-imprisonable criminal offence. Such offences could include those in Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986—that is, causing harassment, alarm or distress—which carry a maximum penalty of a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale, which is £1,000. Under that act, a person is guilty of an offence if he uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby. That offence can affect a number of people in a very disadvantageous way.
	Another example is Section 24 of the Firearms Act. The offence of giving a shotgun to a person under 15 or supplying an air weapon to a person under 17 would not warrant imprisonment, but we could wish the police to have access to that information. I am sure that your Lordships could think of other examples. In addition, we recognise that it may not always be possible for the police to predict what the final charge would be and whether it would lead to an offence punishable by imprisonment. Indeed, in looking to prevent crime, they may end up bringing no charges at all because identity might exclude somebody from the scene.
	There have been many cases where it has transpired that individuals who were suspected of what appeared to be very trivial offences such as traffic offences—I have alluded to the fact that many people do not tell the truth about their identity—were involved in much more serious crime or were wanted on other grounds; for example, immigration offences. Indeed, there have been cases of individuals subsequently being charged with very serious offences, involving terrorism or murder, where the initial police involvement was in relation to a minor offence. If the amendment were passed, it would preclude any check in respect of such offences against the national identity register. I am sure that no noble Lord would like to see that happen.
	We do not accept that anyone would want that, and we do not accept that it would be right to tie the hands of the police in the way proposed in this amendment. The restriction that is suggested by Amendment No. 5 is both unworkable and unnecessary. I therefore invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, the objective of the amendment is to focus on the Government's failure to meet one of the five reasonable tests which we set out at the beginning of our debates on the Bill. We pointed out that the Government must make clear not only the detail of the specific purposes for which an ID card would be required, but which of those purposes are priorities, otherwise it will be difficult for us to assess them. The Government failed to do that adequately in Committee.
	Clause 1(4) proposes that the definition of what is necessary in the public interest should encompass anything that is,
	"for the purpose of securing the efficient and effective provision of public services".
	I would have thought that the efficient and effective provision of public services embraces the totality of government's duty in the area of public services. This paragraph is framed so widely that it would enable identity cards to be required in accessing literally any public service, so long as the Government claimed that it was in the interests of efficiency. It is the ultimate catch-all paragraph and, as such, it is entirely unsuitable to governing a Bill whose provisions have such a fundamental effect on the relations between the state and the citizen. Under it, everything from a registration of a birth to a registration of a death, from the arrival at the gates of a nursery to collecting a pension, could be made dependent on being registered. As the Minister made clear in the careful letter which she kindly sent to noble Lords last week, the paragraph covers everything under full compulsion, including being able to access a vast array of free health services.
	In that way, within 10 years or so on the Government's current planning, an audit trail of the daily lives of every citizen could be built up. That is a giant step indeed. It should be one of the last steps that we take, when all the legitimate doubts about the costs, efficacy, security and scope of the scheme have been set to rest—if, as I doubt from hearing earlier debates, they can ever be set to rest. It should certainly not be one of the first steps. We should not permit the Government to do everything they wish in the name of efficiency. We should not simply leave the matter to regulations; it would be far better to set out limits in the Bill.
	Amendment No. 6 tries to offer a solution. It creates the active purpose of policing crime and fraud in Clause 1(4)(e); that is, something much more limited and definable than a general purpose of being "efficient". We agree with the Government that citizens of this country would see any attack on the fraudulent access to services as being a useful step. There are more efficient ways of doing that than this Bill, but that is an argument for Second Reading and Committee, not for today. Surely, if the Government's method has any justification at all, it cannot be the creation and maintenance of a vast audit trail, but the specific purpose of preventing illegal and fraudulent access to services, which is, after all, what the Government originally told us this Bill would be all about when we started this process some considerable time ago.
	If the purpose of the scheme were not the general management provision in subsection 4(a), but were the more targeted, and frankly more necessary, purpose that I propose, we would end up designing an entirely different system. I suspect that it would be cheaper, more effective and more efficient than the one before us today. The register and ID cards risk becoming an end in themselves and not a solution. It is important to put this more careful definition in the Bill. I beg to move.

The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, funnily enough, I do not support the amendment in some ways. If we were stuck with just the national identity register, then the amendment would be correct and it should be supported, because I do not think that the national identity register will secure,
	"the efficient and effective provision of public services".
	If the Government want to prevent duplicate benefit fraud, for example, there is logic to a central, hierarchical ID scheme controlled by the Government. But if that is what they are after, they should be honest and accept the amendment. If they really wanted to secure, the efficient and effective provision of public services, which I would like to see, a national identity register is not needed, and instead we should have federated identity schemes that local authorities and so on could join, whereby citizens control their identities and it is unnecessary to hold the information on a central register.
	I would like the Bill changed to include that acceptable alternative, and when the cost benefit analysis was done, the Government would work out that they could drop the central register and move to a federated identity commissioning scheme that would enable that efficient and effective provision of public services. I am torn, because I would like to table an amendment relating to a federated ID scheme and leave the Bill as it is to get rid of the national identity register. But I am sure that that will not happen, and in that case this amendment is more honest.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 6) shall be agreed to?
	Their Lordships divided: Contents, 194; Not-Contents, 141

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, the noble Baroness opened by saying she hoped they were a listening Government and that their amendments have been tabled in response to debates in Committee. I hope that I may say without being opposed by any of my noble colleagues that we always think that the noble Baroness is a listening Minister. Our difficulty is that she does not run the Government. I hope that that does not kill her career stone dead today. We know full well that there are times when she listens but does not agree with us. There are times when she listens and agrees but is unable to carry the matter into legislation. That is one of the interesting facets of a political life. In most of these amendments, the noble Baroness has met the concerns we expressed. I welcome Amendment No. 7 in so far as it does that. My amendments in these groups today are probing in nature and are not intended to go further than that.
	On Amendment No. 8, the noble Baroness has taken us much further today than was possible in Committee or in another place. She has talked about some of the exceptions where the Government would need to consider a period before six years—exceptions that, so far as I am aware, have not been debated previously. I shall consider what she said because she has adduced very reasonable arguments. There could be people without any history in this country in the past six years. They may have been homeless or rootless during that time and are unable to produce that information. For whatever reasons, they may have historic evidence overseas. I accept that that is a good argument.
	There are other circumstances in which it is still intrusive as a matter of course to require that people should go back beyond six years. I do not intend to revamp the Committee stage argument: we pointed out how onerous it could be on individuals to go back 40 or 50 years. However, I recall the noble Baroness saying—I do not wish to put words into her mouth—that perhaps as a matter of good practice the Government might say that if you have lived somewhere for less than three months the place or the dates might not have to be revealed. That is in my mind. I can then move on to the way in which she has dealt with my other amendments. I am grateful to her for that.
	My amendment on students was badly drafted. I sought to put down words which fairly reflected some of the concerns put to me by universities. It does not cover all the issues raised but it was the only one I could find that was admissible. I was intrigued to hear the Minister say that students might wish to choose either their home or college address. I understand the sense in that; however, I suspect that they would not live more than three months at a time at their college address; therefore, the college address might be exempted. I shall need to consider that issue further and perhaps talk to the noble Baroness.
	Universities and colleges have been concerned about how students might be affected. I am aware that the government would be in great difficulty in exempting students per se because there are many different kinds of students. As a very mature student in my late 30s, I did a taught MA when I was living at home. Other students who had taken lodgings for that time kept their original address. Many of those students were sponsored civil servants. I know that the Government are in a difficult position but the statement in the Bill is very wide. I have been trying to get some assurance for outside bodies that at least their concerns are recognised. The noble Baroness has gone some way towards doing that today, and I shall have to think very carefully about what she said about Amendment No. 10.
	The noble Baroness has exactly met my queries with regard to Amendments Nos. 25 and 26, although perhaps for a reason different from mine. I am very happy with what she said. I thought that my amendment and that moved by the noble Baroness might also have a relevance to the position of UK citizens. During our debates in Committee, my noble friend Lord Northesk mentioned that he sometimes lives in the United States. Indeed, I know that the noble Baroness's noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Acton—he is not in his place so I will let him know afterwards that I referred to him by name—gives in Dod's as his principal address an address in the USA, perfectly properly. So I accept that her amendment is right but perhaps for different reasons.
	Overall, I think that we need to consider a little further—perhaps by debate; it may not be necessary to do so by way of a later amendment—how far back one goes in tracking addresses and why. However, I accept the noble Baroness's amendment today and I certainly shall not press my Amendment No.8, although as a matter of course I have to beg to move.

Lord Selsdon: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for the effort that she has made because I was going through a soul-searching exercise and thinking that I would like to know the names and addresses of all the places where I have lived. Those of us who have worked in international organisations and have been brought up internationally forget addresses very quickly. The noble Baroness has addressed the issue but I have certain concerns regarding the terminology. The word "resident" is used but it can sometimes be misinterpreted as "being resident" or "ordinary resident" and it may get confused with one's original status in life. That causes concerns for people who have dual passports and international people.
	Those who have worked in multinational or international organisations will often have been on secondments for a maximum period of two years. In some cases in my former group, the secondment was to the cruise liners, where effectively you lived for a period of time, often with no separate residence. The same would often apply to bachelors in the Navy, who would regard the ship as their home and would have no separate residence. I am not saying that there is any confusion but I should have preferred it if we had stuck to the phrase "where they have lived for a reasonable period of time" rather than using the word "resident".
	This is a difficult issue because we will still have all the terrible problems that we read about from time to time in newspapers of a married man cohabiting in another house with someone else and denying that that is his permanent residence. I think that the problem of where people are came up when we originally looked at the poll tax. I am not suggesting that the amendment moved by the noble Baroness is not acceptable because she has really tried, but I think that all sorts of problems may emerge later which could cause individuals harm.
	Therefore, I wonder whether it might be possible to define the word "residence" more accurately and change it to, say, "where someone has lived for a reasonable period of time". Whether it is six or five years does not matter. This also applies to multinational students—not those from some of the countries nearer to home but those from the third world and others, who often will not have a full address.
	Once, in Cairo, I tried to produce a street map with addresses because there were no addresses. It was a case of turn right at wherever it might be—there were no traffic lights. That happens in many areas. The latest reports produced by the immigration people on a number of residents of the United Kingdom or those born abroad in some of the African countries show that they do not have addresses. I am not trying to make difficulties; I just want to point out that some issues which may appear relatively simple are not as simple as we would like to believe.

Lord Greaves: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester on getting this valuable short debate. I admired the optimistic view of the railways that he put forward, yet I cannot entirely share it—certainly not in England, where we seem to lack a Government with the purpose and commitment to railways that Scotland, as my noble friend Lord Mar and Kellie set out, is fortunate to have.
	In the short time that I have, I was going to talk about the need for a north-south high-speed link, but there I merely want to endorse with enthusiasm the words of the noble Lord, Lord Worcester, and of my noble friend. That idea has been around for quite a few years; its time has now come, and it really requires commitment from national Government to get it under way. That is a long-term or at least medium-term project; but, if yet another high-speed rail line can be built from Calais to Paris, as is now proposed to shorten journey times on the Channel Tunnel rail-link routes, then surely we can look to build a new line from London to the north of England—and, further, to Scotland.
	Meanwhile we have the two main lines. The west coast main line has had a substantial upgrade. That was a difficult project for all sorts of reasons, but its value now shows. Then we have the east coast main line, which has for a long time been this country's premier inter-city route. I suggest that unless a great deal of investment takes place now in the east coast main line, on a fairly short-term basis—longish short-term, if you like—then we shall be in difficulties. That east coast main line is visibly close to capacity; companies such as Hull Trains are trying to get new paths which are proving difficult to find.
	Improvements are happening. Yet they consist of, for example, the substantial and welcome improvements to Leeds station, suggestions of remodelling Peterborough, and the diversionary freight improvements put in place south of Doncaster. Those are all welcome, but they are only palliative measures—and, as we know, particularly in the sections north of Peterborough and Grantham the main line electrification was done, to a degree, on the cheap. It requires really substantial investment to bring it up to scratch. Not even that commitment exists in the way which I suggest that it should.
	Finally, we have the threat in the north of England not of expanding services but of cuts in them. That will follow the review of the northern franchise, and we are perhaps awaiting the imminent result of that with bated breath. I live at the end of a branch line between Preston and Colne. The last 10 miles of that, as far as Colne, is a siding from the Gannow Junction at Burnley. There is a real sense that such lines are in danger of being chopped off; yet just over the Pennines we have the tremendous success of electrification and the new Class 333 trains on the Leeds-Bradford northern triangle routes to Skipton and Ilkley. Those are excellent trains and services, resulting in increased patronage, yet even there we are told that cuts are possible because of the cost of leasing the new trains. That is madness. Will the Minister not agree that we should be going for expansion of the railways?

Lord Snape: My Lords, I join in the general congratulations to my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester on giving us the opportunity to participate in this evening's short debate about the railway industry. I declare an interest as an employee of the National Express group, one of Britain's major train operators. In the four minutes open to me, I wish to make five quick points. Whether I succeed remains to be seen.
	First, I will ask my noble friend on the Front Bench about the railway infrastructure throughout England. Enough mention has been made of Scotland and Wales and, while I congratulate the devolved institutions for their work there, it shows up the gap between what is happening in England and activity north or west of our border. We are experiencing an annual growth rate of about 4 per cent in carrying railway passengers. In any other business, people would be planning years ahead to ensure that they could cater for that growth, but we are not good at doing that. Long-term planning is a phrase that makes the Treasury quake in its boots, regardless of the political hue of the government of the day. All too often, short-termism rules OK.
	Mention has been made of Sir Rod Eddington's north-south high-speed rail line, should he recommend such a project. Again, at the prospect of paying out the billions of pounds that that will take, one can just imagine the sucking in of breath at the Treasury. Yet the alternative is increasing congestion on our road network and increasing problems within our rail industry. My noble friend mentioned Salisbury and Exeter. I understand that in the short term, there is no business case for doubling capacity on the Salisbury to Exeter line. Well, why do we not look at the long term for once? The case will certainly exist then, and will cost more each year that we postpone it. I fear that is the inevitable fate over many years of railway projects.
	Secondly, I want to ask my noble friend about franchising policy. As someone who works for the National Express group, I hate to sound like a bad loser, but why was First Great Western awarded the new franchise? First Great Western is at the bottom of the league tables of inter-city punctuality and reliability. Its new franchise takes part of Wessex Trains, formerly run by the National Express group—which, in the same league table, was at the top. Now, I am unsure why National Express should lose Wessex Trains to what is presently the worst performing inter-city TOC. Can the Minister tell us? I fear that it is because of the £2 billion premium that First Great Western offered for that franchise. I note, as I hope the Minister has done, that the bulk of that payment is at the back end of the franchise. The great fear is that if fares are allowed to go up but insufficient profit is made to make those substantial payments, First will then say: "Thanks very much; we tried our best but didn't have much success with it". The advantages that we have seen of a sensible franchising policy will be thrown away.
	Thirdly, some congratulations are in order for Network Rail. Given the awful experiences with Railtrack, Network Rail has done a fine job by bringing much of its maintenance in-house—the only sensible way to go about maintaining the railway. I wish that it would shout a bit more loudly or strongly about its successes.
	Fourthly, I must tell my noble friend that there is something wrong with the leasing policy on new trains. I am not saying that he is in any way responsible; the last Conservative government were. But there is something wrong somewhere when decent trains are lying rotting in army sidings at Bicester and Long Marston, and people are travelling between Sheffield and Doncaster in Class 142 pacers—those are, supposedly, express trains. The Government really ought to look again at that.
	Finally, on fares policy; if, as it appears, fares are to go up with such great regularity as appears to be the case, especially to repay some franchise payments, then much of the good work of the railway—and the good publicity that it deserves—will not happen. Again, we ought to look at fares policy and ensure that it attracts people out of aeroplanes and motor cars, and on to our trains.

Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to comment from these Benches on an issue that has significant implications for many millions of individuals every day of the year. I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, for initiating the debate.
	I am a fairly recent convert to rail travel. Having for most of my youth jumped in a car and driven to most places, I now value and want to use the railway most of the time. Unfortunately, however, I live in the south-east. Most commentators today have talked about the lack of provision to deal with the problems in England, particularly the south-east of England. The station that I use most regularly for coming here and going to other places is Chelmsford, which I think is the busiest commuter station in the country. Certainly, before seven o'clock in the morning, the platform is something like five deep with people who want to commute into London. Considerable investment needs to be made into the rail network in England, and a great deal of thought should go into what is going on.
	In 2000, the Deputy Prime Minister's 10-year transport plan said that there would be,
	"improved commuter rail services, less overcrowding and reduced delays".
	The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Derek Twigg, said in May last year:
	"The Government are working with the railway industry to deliver improvements to capacity and performance, which, along with a better deployment of rolling stock and improvements to operating practices and timetables, will improve performance and help alleviate overcrowding".—[Official Report, Commons, 24/5/05; col. 540.]
	The Secretary of State, Alistair Darling, said in October last year:
	"The way to reduce overcrowding on trains—whether it be in the south-east or anywhere else—is to increase the number of passengers that can be carried on them. That is part of the work that Sir Rod Eddington is doing for us at the moment . . . What is important is that we sign up to the proposition of a growing railway, which is so important to the economy of the south-east as well as to the country as a whole".—[Official Report, Commons, 11/10/05; col. 142.]
	I hope that the noble Lord will not simply repeat those words but will give us some real facts about what might happen to improve the railways. We need to know what is actually going to happen. There is increased congestion and lack of capacity; there has been a double whammy, with fares increased by more than the rate of inflation. We heard today that in 1997 government investment was about £1 billion, and that in 2003-04 it was about £3.5 billion. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said that the investment figure was about £4.5 billion per year now. But what do we see for that? Despite all that investment, the public performance measure, introduced in 2000 to give a better indication of Britain's passenger railways, is still below what it was in 1998.
	The problem of capacity has become so acute that we are hearing that the Secretary of State for Transport will give the go-ahead to close lines and reduce the existing timetables, supposedly to improve the services that remain. An article in tonight's Evening Standard suggested closing rural lines to invest in the south-east. Surely that is not the idea. We really need to tackle this problem.
	Before I finish—and this has been a very timely debate—I should like to mention two issues which are close to my heart and which I have mentioned before. The first is the potential expansion of Stansted airport. I have already mentioned the problems of the south-east. I hope the noble Lord will recognise, as he has done before, that we cannot expand Stansted to take 70 million passengers without having a tremendously improved rail service to it—otherwise it will just become the largest car park in the world, with all the problems that that means.
	Crossrail, which we shall be debating shortly, has been mentioned by several noble Lords today. We all support it, but where is the money coming from, how will it happen, and what will happen during its construction? I have already mentioned the capacity problems of the south-east. The construction of Crossrail could bring the whole of the south-east to a halt.
	This has been a very worthwhile debate, and I hope that the noble Lord can give us some real answers, not just fine words.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, if I manage fine words, they will be spoken in rather breathless haste. To have 10 speakers in a debate and give a response to them in an hour is rather demanding. Noble Lords will forgive me if I appear somewhat breathless in my approach to these issues.
	After a number of difficult years, Britain's railways are today a success story. That is the basis on which my noble friend Lord Faulkner introduced this debate. I congratulate him on his speech, in which he asked me some challenging questions but also paid tribute to the enormous development of the railway over the past decade.
	The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, regretted that we had not restored our railways to a nationalised framework, but we have a level of investment which could not have been dreamt of a decade or so ago and a degree of control over that investment which augurs well for the future development of the railways. The noble Lord gave the historical perspective; he noticeably left out Hatfield, which is one of the biggest events of the past decade in terms of railway performance. The railways have acquired the stupendous degree of investment necessary to guarantee the most important issue of all, that of safety. I hope that he recognises the achievements in that area too.
	Noble Lords raised a range of interesting questions. My noble friend Lord Faulkner, with his deep interest in the railways, raised a number of issues which I will attempt to respond to, many of which were replicated in the debate by other contributions. He mentioned the high-speed rail link to Scotland. I heard my noble friend Lord Berkeley pour some cold water on this; he is right that the costs for the project are very significant indeed, but so are the potential rewards. My noble friend Lord Faulkner referred to the railways competing with the airways. They ought to, on environmental grounds if no other, and for the convenience of passengers—93 per cent of the traffic from England to Scotland, and vice versa, is by air. If the railways are to compete, we have to think afresh about how we do it.
	I respect my noble friend Lord Berkeley's anxieties. The invested costs are such that they might lead to less investment in other areas. That issue has got to be considered, but let us have no doubt that if we are to go ahead with such a project we need to plan and consider these issues fully now. That is exactly what we are doing. We made a commitment before the last general election in our manifesto that this would be an issue that we would consider thoroughly. That work is going on apace, with the possibility of an announcement in due course.
	The noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, emphasised the Scottish dimension with regard to rail. I recognise the Scottish expansion. Several of my colleagues from England—including, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Snape—indicated that Scotland had had additional investment not altogether matched in England. My noble friend Lord Rosser also commented on that fact. We very much approve and applaud the success of Scottish investment.
	I take on board the point raised about car parking. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, at the end of his contribution emphasised that without car parking we cannot solve a great deal of the potential expansion in demand for the railway. That is right. There is no way in which we can take into account investment in rail and approach the issue of the capacity of rail unless we look at the capacity of people's access to stations, which means being able to park cars there. That is an integral part of our thinking about development. It is easier in some areas than others, as noble Lords will recognise, but I emphasise that the Government are fully alert to and aware of this feature of railway expansion.
	My noble friend Lord Rosser commented on the issues with his great experience and long professional life serving the railways. He is right that some of the major capacity bottlenecks are inevitably in the south-east. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, made the point in his contribution as well. We all recognise the particular demands, particularly of commuter services, in the south-east and the great demands on rolling stock. I think that noble Lords will recognise the significant investment that has gone on in recent years, including investment in rolling stock. I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Snape, said about some rolling stock still in sidings, but he will recognise that as a reflection of investment there has been an enormous reduction in the overall age in the rolling stock, particularly for commuter services, in recent years. A great deal of this has been concentrated in essential areas in the south-east.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, from her perspective emphasised the importance of the railways. I know that in her wider interests in life she is concerned about the railways being an important service for those who do not drive cars. A great number of people who are too elderly or infirm to drive cars gain advantage from railway travel. If the railway provides a service, it has to do so at the right level of convenience for that population. I accept the points that she made, but I hope she will recognise what my noble friend Lord Faulkner emphasised in his opening speech—that we have seen an expansion in investment and a growth in the railways in recent years. We are committed to that and intend to make further additions as the years go by.
	I am conscious of the fact that part of the debate concentrated very much on the short term. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, commented on the advancement of the west coast main line. We could not—in fact, we did not—have a railway debate for the past six or seven years without the west coast main line featuring prominently, with constant criticism from all parts of the House, because of the difficulties that were experienced during its refurbishment. Happily, that time has passed. That significant investment is producing considerable rewards and increased use of the railway. I am all too well aware of the fact that we now need to extend some of that development to services which are not as strategic as the west coast main line. I take on board the points which the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, made about certain aspects of inter-city travel and inter-town travel in the north of England. Cross-country rolling stock is not up to standard there. We know the importance of investment in that area.
	The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, was critical of certain aspects of the way in which Network Rail and the train companies go about their jobs. He said that there may be an over-emphasis on aspects of punctuality. Given the record of the railway during those years of excessive decline, it is difficult to think of a greater priority that people set for the railway than the expectation that their train is going to arrive on time. I know what he meant when he said that we may reduce capacity by having adequate margins for punctuality. Our high-level specification strategy will look at how we can enhance capacity. Through our present rail utilisation strategies, we are looking in great detail—in the medium term as well as the short term—at line utilisation in order that we get the maximum out of the system that we have.
	I take on board elements of his criticism, but there is one point with which I have great difficult. He knows that I never feel terribly warm towards the issue of the length of the railway franchises. The noble Lord brought up the 20-year Chiltern franchise. That franchise is almost unique in its limited interaction with the rest of the rail system. It is easier to produce a rail franchise for a system which is more self-contained than many others. We have shorter franchise times than that. The noble Lord spoke about longer-term investment, but we think that we have received franchise bids which reflect investment.
	My noble friend Lord Snape will not draw me into trying to establish for him why a particular potential franchisee lost out in a bid. First, it would be a misuse of parliamentary time to debate this issue with a particular interest. Secondly, although past performance is taken into account when judging to whom to allocate franchises, performance and effectiveness are the crucial criteria. I am afraid that he cannot come to the House as a representative of a bad loser. I will not enter that debate with him.

Consideration of amendments on Report resumed on Clause 1.
	[Amendment No. 10 not moved.]

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am not that unfit. The amendment simply adds the single word "external" in Clause 1(7)(e) before the words, "physical characteristics". The clause would then state that,
	"references to an individual's identity",
	relating to subsection (5), were references to,
	"external physical characteristics of his that are capable of being used for identifying him".
	The problem as we see it—because other names are added to the amendment—is that Schedule 1 and Clause 43, a definition clause, do not refer to physical characteristics at all. Both refer to "biometric" particulars. The definition in Clause 43 states that,
	"'biometric information', in relation to an individual, means data about his external characteristics, including, in particular, the features of an iris or any other part of the eye".
	In effect, the definition of "biometric information" in Clause 43 includes that magic word "external" in relation to characteristics that I want to see added in this subsection for consistency purposes. In addition, given that there is no direct cross reference between Clause 1, the determinative clause, and Schedule 1, which has to be within Clause 1, we could improve the Bill by making it abundantly clear that reference in Clause 1 to physical characteristics is to external characteristics only. Otherwise there is a danger that in some future time another government may give a different interpretation—although not this Government, because they have made it clear what they mean with respect to "physical characteristics" in Schedule 1, and I do not for a second doubt that they will stick to that. But I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, as a lawyer, will agree with me that Clause 1(7), when it talks of physical characteristics, is capable in future of being construed as including non-external characteristics; it could include internal physical characteristics. That might be from X-rays or internal body fluids. Although it goes on in Clause 1(7) to say,
	"physical characteristics . . . that are capable of being used for identifying him",
	under laboratory conditions, analysis of internal physical characteristics or body fluids, which are physical characteristics, would render such internal matter capable of being used to identify the individual.
	In drafting the amendment, I wondered whether one might not use the word "visible" physical characteristics. One might have got round the point by talking about "solid physical characteristics", to avoid the prospect of DNA samples, for example. The Minister made it absolutely clear what the Government thought about that. However, I repeat, this should not be one of those cases in which glosses in debate, made by a Minister on behalf of the Crown, could be taken to affect the interpretation of those particular words when the words are—as I believe they are here—capable of an independent definition and use. That is all a long way round to say that we on these Benches would like this part of the Bill bolted and barred, because the issue is very important, and a lot of energy has been devoted by all of us to ensure that what goes on the national identity register is limited to what we hope and expect to go on.
	The only other thing that I want to say is that the Information Commissioner has been extremely forthright in his report on the Bill about characteristics, about which this could be said to be one. I refer, too, to the letter that the Minister kindly sent round to us all last week, which took up a series of points that were raised in Committee on 12, 14 and 19 December. On the issue that we are discussing under this amendment, which I raised on 12 December in col. 988, the Minister said in her letter:
	"Physical characteristics that are capable of being used for identification may include for example reference to a person's having distinctive scars, or a missing hand or leg . . . However, this would only apply to visible physical characteristics which are capable of helping to identify a person, and therefore illnesses and internal physical characteristics would again be excluded. There is also no power in the Bill that could be used to require a person to provide a DNA sample".
	As I have endeavoured to explain, I do not agree with her that interpretation of "physical characteristics" excludes internal physical characteristics. If, and insofar as, there is doubt about this—and I believe that there has to be—it is easily resolved by adding this word. That seems to me uncontentious, to boot, and I hope that the Government will be inclined to accept it. I beg to move.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I seek clarification on Amendment No. 118. I am always very beady-eyed about prescribed regulations and so on, and the definition of "prescribed", which must occur a hundred times in the Bill, is on page 37 and is part of Clause 43. Amendment No. 118 strikes out from the word "state" to the end of the definition. That would mean that we are left with a definition that "prescribed" means:
	"prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State",
	full stop. The words to be deleted are,
	"or determined in accordance with such regulations by the prescribed person".
	Am I right in thinking that they would have allowed regulations to be prescribed by delegation; that is, that there could have been prescribed regulations which permitted regulations to be prescribed by somebody else? If that is what the omission of those words means, I am a happy fellow indeed. We will all cheer and, since good news is hard to find in this Bill, I want that opportunity. If I keep talking, news may come flashing back from the ether, but that is my question to the Minister.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I move this amendment on behalf of my noble friend. With the leave of the House, I will speak to the other amendments in the group, the consequential government amendments Amendments Nos. 21 to 23 and Amendments Nos. 19 and 42 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips.
	First, Amendment No. 18 is intended to respond to a concern raised from the Opposition Benches in Committee; namely, that it was not clear in the Bill that anything held on the national identity register and, thus, the detailed list set out in Schedule 1 must be in accordance with the statutory purposes of the scheme. The statutory purposes, as we have already discussed at length, are twofold: first, to provide a convenient method for individuals to prove their identity—registrable facts about themselves to others who reasonably require them—and, secondly, the provision of a secure and reliable method for registrable facts to be ascertained or verified where that is in the public interest.
	Amendment No. 18 amends Clause 3 to make it absolutely clear that the information that may be held on the register, including, of course, the information listed in Schedule 1, must be consistent with the statutory purposes of the scheme. The amendment makes it clear that no information may be entered in the register unless it is consistent with the statutory purposes, and, once entered, it may continue to be recorded there,
	"only if and for so long as it is consistent with the statutory purposes".
	Amendments Nos. 21 to 23 are purely consequential. They remove subsections (4) and (6), which prevent information being added or continuing to be held on the register if it is inconsistent with the statutory purposes. Those subsections now become redundant because they are encompassed in Amendment No. 18.
	The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has tabled an alternative, Amendment No. 19. That would link what is held on the register by virtue of Schedule 1 to the "registrable facts" listed at Clause 1(5). In effect, the noble Lord's amendment conflates the registrable facts with Schedule 1. We are afraid that it would place an unnecessary and unworkable limitation on that schedule. Before I explain why that limitation would be unworkable, I will remind noble Lords of the distinction between the registrable facts and Schedule 1.
	As noble Lords are aware, the purpose of the scheme is to create means by which people can identify themselves and can be identified. The process of identification is tied down—defined, as it were—in the Bill by the registrable facts. The scheme revolves around that list of key pieces of identification information. The list of registrable facts at Clause 1(5) is therefore an absolutely crucial component of the statutory purposes, but it should be kept in mind that, however crucial, it is just a component. The registrable facts must be seen in light of the statutory purposes as a whole. Those statutory purposes provide the overriding principle that determines and limits the information that may, by virtue of Clause 3 and Schedule 1, be held on the register. For that reason, Amendment No. 18 focuses on the statutory purposes, in contrast to Amendment No. 19, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, which focuses on one component of the statutory purposes, namely the registrable facts.
	I hope that, from that explanation, it is apparent why the key concept for limiting the contents of the register is the statutory purposes as a whole and not just the registrable facts. However, by way of illustration, I will briefly explain why it will be necessary to hold information on the register in support of the registrable facts, and thus the statutory purposes as a whole, even though that information is not itself contained in the list of registrable facts.
	I hope that, if that sounds like a contradiction, the following examples will shed some light. First, under Clause 1(5)(e), a person's current residential status is a registrable fact, and that includes nationality as specified at Clause 1(8)(a). Thus in confirming someone's identity it will be possible for their nationality to be confirmed—for example, by being printed visibly on the face of the identity card. However, in order to establish a person's nationality, it will be necessary for the agency issuing identity cards to see supporting evidence—for example, a birth certificate and evidence of the person's parents' nationality—exactly the sort of evidence that the United Kingdom Passport Service needs to see now when considering an application for a passport.
	Details of that evidence—for example, the number and date and place of issue of the birth certificate—would be held on the register in accordance with paragraph 7 of Schedule 1 as validation information. That evidence will continue to be held as it may need to be referred to in future if ever there was any concern about the person's entitlement to the nationality claimed. The person's nationality would be a registrable fact but not the supporting evidence. Both would need to be held on the register for the scheme to meet its statutory purposes.
	If only registrable facts could be held on the register then the supporting evidence could not itself be held unless it were made registrable facts. We would not want all of the supporting evidence to be classed as registrable facts, otherwise it could in theory be made available when someone sought to prove their identity, and we do not believe that that would be right.
	Another example would be security information such as a password that someone might be asked to provide to allow for authentication in the absence of a biometric check. Let us say that someone is asked for their favourite colour as a security password and that that colour is purple. The fact that purple is that person's favourite colour would be held on the register as part of the security information in accordance with paragraph 8(b) of Schedule 1. However, that person's favourite colour would not itself be a registrable fact. Also, if on renewing the identity card a different password was chosen—let us say mother's maiden name—it is likely that the first one would simply be deleted as it would no longer be in accordance with the statutory purposes to hold information about that person's favourite colour on the register.
	The other amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, Amendment No. 42, would add a pointer in Clause 5(5)(d) to the information held in the register under Clause 3. Thus it would only be information that could be recorded in the register that might be requested when someone made an application to be entered in the register and issued with an identity card. Again, we think that that would be an unnecessary limitation as it is possible that someone applying for an identity card might be asked to provide information to confirm the information to be recorded on the register that would not itself be information that would, or indeed could, be held. Again, the key safeguard here is set out in Clause 5(6). The purpose of asking for information to verify an application for an identity card must of necessity be in order to comply with the statutory purposes of the national identity register and the identity card scheme itself.
	In view of that explanation and the government amendments that have been tabled, I hope that it is now much clearer that only information that supports the statutory purposes of the scheme can be held on the register and that any information on the register must be as provided for in Clause 3 and Schedule 1. I hope that the clarification that I have provided to the noble Lord will enable him to withdraw Amendments Nos. 19 and 42. I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that compliment. We thought that the committee did a thorough job. We gave serious consideration to its recommendations and were happy to accede to them. Indeed, we do not think that Amendment No. 41 is necessary, for the reasons that I gave.
	I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe. I am sure that message went to the Box, and I am sure that it must have been with me, but I did not get it and I apologise for not having got it. That is why I was a little slow in jumping to my feet, but I am grateful to the noble Baroness and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for not moving Amendment No. 28. I would have thanked them more profusely had I known of it when I first got to my feet.
	We looked at whether Amendment No. 41 was a consequential amendment to our Amendment No. 29. We are clear that, having tabled Amendment No. 29, no other amendment to the Bill is necessary. As always, we will reflect on that but, looking at those amendments, I believe that to be the correct position. No further amendment should be necessary.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, perhaps I may be "telegraphic"—to borrow a word that is quite often by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland—and say to the noble Earl that I understand his concerns, but they are not merited. I understand that he is saying that the legislation may restrict our taking advantage of the technological advancements that are now in being or are anticipated in the next two or three years and prohibit us availing ourselves of the technology which enables us to encrypt data at both ends. In short, we do not believe that that is so. The way in which the Bill is currently drawn will enable us to take advantage of those technological developments and hold encrypted data. I can therefore assure the noble Earl that when a person seeks to update his details online, he will not be accessing the register directly. With regard to security of PIN, we are investigating the use of the new technology—to which the noble Earl referred—which utilises PKI infrastructures to ensure that remote transactions can be conducted more securely. For example, a change in address can be held in the system to enable those who will then put that information into the register to deal with it. There will be no direct access. The breach about which the noble Earl was concerned could not take place in that way.
	Bearing in mind that it is now a quarter to 10, I could delight the House with a more detailed exposition of that technical data.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: However, I feel that House's appetite for it may be less great than that of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury. If the House is content, I will write to the noble Earl in specific detail, but the import of my response to each of his amendments is that I understand his concern; he is right to raise the issue of technical improvements, particularly encryption; and he is right to emphasise that the use of encryption in the system may become increasingly important if we are to keep this database secure and make sure that it is impregnable. We believe that the framework that this Bill provides enables us to do that without some of the problems that he envisaged. I will deal in a letter with the technical meat of what I have just said, which I shall give to the noble Earl and share with all of those who feel a similar level of excitement about those details.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, moving this amendment at this time of night will not be easy. This part of the Bill has, I suspect, been somewhat orphaned, because we all agree that paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 is particularly important because, as it stands, it allows collection of what one might call a second set of information with regard to every use that is made of an identity card.
	As the Bill stands, any of us will be able to give consent under Clause 14 for our identity cards to be used for verification purposes that will give the verifying authority or commercial entity the right to look at everything on our entry in the register, except the records referred to in Schedule 1(9). That information is available, as I understand it, only under Clause 20(4), whereby, under Section 17 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, one can call upon certain information,
	"for purposes connected with the prevention or detection of serious crime".
	I am the first to accept that the definition of "serious" is a high hurdle. We were talking earlier about the right level of seriousness of offence to trigger the provisions of the Bill. "Serious crime" as defined in the Bill is indeed serious crime. None the less, access to paragraph 9 information is available to those who satisfy the Clause 20 test without the consent of the person whose information has been recorded under paragraph 9. We are dealing with what is commonly called the "audit trail", and my amendment—and I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford—seeks to turn around the present provisions of the Bill in two regards. First, it says that one must give two consents, if the audit trail of the information recorded on one's register is to be captured.
	The first consent is the use of the card for verification purposes. We have no problem with Clause 14 as it stands; the problem is that we think there should be a second consent for the capture of what you might call the audit trail information. If I use my card at a hotel it will be used to verify where the hotel is and, under paragraph 9, other information beside, to do with each and every use of my card. As has been specifically warned against by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the information that can be stored under the provision, and the audit trail which will be established by it will, as the committee's report put it,
	"include a record of the occasions on which his or her entry on the Register has been accessed by others . . . for example, in the use of public services, or by prospective employers, or as part of criminal investigations (regardless of whether these result in prosecutions or convictions). Thus the information held on the Register may amount to a detailed account of their private life".
	That is very much the line taken by the Information Commissioner.
	I urge those of your Lordships who have not had a chance to do so to look at the report that the Information Commissioner issued in October, which spends a great deal of time and energy pointing specifically to the danger of the audit trail provisions, of which I shall read one part. It says:
	"The extent of the information retained as a core part of the National Identity Register is unwarranted and intrusive".
	That comes from the report of the Information Commissioner, who is there to protect all our data against unwarranted access. He goes on to say that,
	"the system of operation envisaged by the government also raises additional serious concerns. The government proposes that a data trail should be created of when a card is checked against the National Identity Register. This will show who checked it and when. The government has made clear that the system of operation it favours involves checks by service providers back to the National Identity Register thus building up a picture of an individuals' card use and a detailed picture from this of how they live their lives. Other systems of checks are perfectly feasible such as a local card reader and biometric reader verifying identity, removing the need for central records to be kept and minimising the risks and costs associated with developing a complex IT infrastructure".
	The Information Commissioner goes on to raise his own concerns about whether the scheme is compliant with the European convention and the Human Rights Act.
	I shall not quote what it said, but the Select Committee on the Constitution in its third report also put emphasis on this whole part of the Bill. We need to keep remembering that the onus should be on the state to prove the public need justifying intrusion into our own data and privacy. It is easy to slip into a reverse assumption when one gets embedded in a Bill of this kind and becomes almost establishment-minded.
	What the amendment seeks to do is, in its first part, relatively simple. It says that there must be two consents if there is to be a data trail captured on our file in the national identity register. The first consent, under Clause 14, will be for use of our card to verify our identity. Fine, no problem; but there must be a second consent which must be given at the time when the card is used—and I am assured by those who know much more about this than I do, including the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, that it is relatively straightforward. On every occasion on which the card is used for identification purposes, there would be a button to be pressed which would consent to the storing of the information as to the circumstances of use of the card—the audit trail information. We say that in order to satisfy the concerns of the committees I have mentioned, the Information Commissioner and indeed our views on all this—and I think I speak for the Conservative Benches as well—we can deal with it by the amendment given here, which would require at least a double consent: one consent for the verification, but a second consent for the capture of the audit trail information.
	The second part of the amendment, paragraph (b), is almost counter-intuitive: when our information is being accessed by, for example, the security authorities or the police, then they shall record the occasion of accessing our data, because that will not be an occasion to which we have consented. If the Government are inclined to say, "We can't have that, because it would blow apart the security operation or police operation, because it would allow us to require under the Data Protection Act the details of the accessing of that information", the answer is that there are many protections under the Data Protection Act 1998, particularly Sections 28 and 29, the first of which exempts national security information and the second of which exempts from disclosure information that would be prejudicial to the prevention or detection of crime.
	That is a galloping explanation of an amendment that is not exactly easy, but which we believe is very important. I should pay tribute to Caspar Bowden, who has been one of the greatest servants to this place with regard to data protection matters over the past seven or eight years; one of those members of the public whose pro bono activities inform and enhance the work we do in this House. It was largely due to his promptings that this amendment has come in at this stage. I apologise for it not having come in at the previous stage, but better late than never.
	This matter cannot be dealt with tonight, and I am pretty certain, unless the Minister in responding to this amendment says alarmingly unexpected things, we probably ought to deal with this again on Third Reading. I will sit down at this juncture. I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I understand noble Lords' anxiety although in this case, again, I believe that it is misplaced. I understand that two or three minutes past 10 is not the opportunity for me to expound on all the reasons why they are misplaced. In a fairly truncated form, perhaps I may say why we think the safeguards suffice. I shall be happy to write more fully to noble Lords. Indeed, perhaps between now and Third Reading we can further amplify issues which may still be causing anxiety. As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, so helpfully suggested, if they cannot be dealt with, then at Third Reading we would know the dividing lines and can deal with them at that stage.
	Perhaps I may remind noble Lords that the most important matter is that the audit log is essentially a safeguard for the individual as it allows an individual to check where and when information has been verified or provided to an organisation. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, may have an exemplary recall of every transaction he has ever made but that is not the experience of all of us. Sometimes we need an aide-mémoire to jog our memories as to where we might have been. In any event, if an individual had to consent to this provision of information being recorded, that could also create a loophole in the scheme which could be exploited by fraudsters. Perhaps I may explain why I say that.
	Certain types of fraud, especially financial fraud, are often detected by the pattern of usage. Someone attempting to engage in this sort of fraud will no doubt be aware of that and will therefore not wish to have the provision of information recorded in case it assists in the detection of his activities. The record of the provision of information will assist with any disputes over what information has been provided. For example, someone may consent to his record being verified but state that he does not wish the provision of the information to be recorded in the audit log. If he later complains that the organisation was provided with information that he had not consented to, it will be impossible for the agency to check back and confirm exactly what information was provided.
	I hope that I have reassured noble Lords that the audit log is a safeguard which is of benefit to the individual, as opposed to a disadvantage. Officials in the agency operating the identity card scheme will determine, on behalf of the Secretary of State, whether audit log information may be provided to the police or government department under Clause 19. Noble Lords will remember that that information can be only for the purposes of serious crime. In practice, we expect to establish a specialised section in the agency, staffed by officials with a high security clearance, to deal with requests for audit log information. I hope that noble Lords will remember that I said in our earlier debates that this information will not be generally available; it will be available to the individual, who will want to check the use to which the information has been put in order that he can verify and challenge, as appropriate.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House adjourned at fourteen minutes past ten o'clock.
	Monday, 16 January 2006.